Film Features

Franco Zeffirelli: 'I had this feeling that I was special'

Jasper Rees Saturday, 15 June 2019

"I am amazed to be still alive. Two hours of medieval torment.” Franco Zeffirelli - who has died at the age of 96 - had spent the day having a lumbar injection to treat a sciatic nerve. You could hear the bafflement in his heavily accented English.

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Bob Dylan Special - Rolling Thunder Revue, Netflix

Tim Cumming Tuesday, 11 June 2019

Tomorrow, Martin Scorsese delivers, via Netflix, two hours and 22 minutes of screen time devoted to Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, following on from the release last week of the latest Bootleg Series boxed set, 14...

Cannes 2019: Week One - a genre-heavy opening

Joseph Walsh Sunday, 19 May 2019

Every year the Cannes Film Festival is a swirl of chaos, excitement, and controversy. Last year, the festival had a markedly different feel. Gone were the big starry names.

Obituary: Bibi Andersson 1935-2019

David Thompson Tuesday, 23 April 2019

"One talks, the other doesn’t" is about as crude a description as could be of the Swedish masterpiece, Persona. Profoundly experimental even today, Ingmar Bergman’s film was at base about the intense, vampiric encounter between a mute actress suffering a breakdown and the garrulous nurse assigned to care for her.

theartsdesk in Tromsø: the celluloid Cold War

Demetrios Matheou Monday, 28 January 2019

With Russian spies murdering people in the UK, a Norwegian pensioner jailed in Moscow on spying charges, Russian hackers believed to have meddled in both the US presidential election and the EU referendum, diplomats thrown out of various countries and Donald Trump being portrayed as Putin’s puppet, it’s hard not to feel that the Cold War is being warmed up for the 21^stcentury.

Director Alexandria Bombach: 'I feel like a completely different person'

Owen Richards Wednesday, 23 January 2019

Nadia Murad caught the world’s attention when she spoke at the United Nations Security Council. She spoke of living under ISIS, daily assaults, escaping, and the current plight of the Yazidi people, in refugee camps and still under ISIS control. It was a heart-breaking plea for support to the world’s silent nations.

James Graham: 'the country of Shakespeare no longer recognises arts as a core subject'

James Graham Thursday, 20 September 2018

Thank you. It’s an honour to have been asked to speak here today. Although looking at the h100 List this year, I’ve no idea why I’m presumptuously standing here; given the talent, creativity and achievements far surpassing my own within this room. But I’m also excited, and genuinely inspired, to be part of such a group.

'You won't be able to handle this lady': remembering Fenella Fielding

Jasper Rees Wednesday, 12 September 2018

Fenella Fielding - “one of the finest female impersonators in the business,” joked Eric Morecambe – has died at the age of 90. Most actors of such a great vintage tend to be forgotten, but not Fielding. Last year she celebrated her big birthday with a memoir.

'I saw that death is beautiful, unspeakable and strange': on filming 'Island'

Steven Eastwood Monday, 10 September 2018

Most of us have very little knowledge of the process of life ending, physically and emotionally, until it comes suddenly into our own experience. Dying remains taboo. We don’t talk about dying, we don’t teach it in schools, and yet this event is as natural and everyday as birth. Having been one of the central subjects for art for a millennium or more, death has come to be one of the least broached. The images we have are medicalised or euphemistic.

Neil Simon: 'I don’t think you want it really dark'

Jasper Rees Monday, 27 August 2018

Asked to nominate the most important playwright in America since the war, theatregoers would probably plump for Arthur Miller, Edward Albee or David Mamet. But in terms of sheer popularity there is another candidate.

Box office poison? Joan Crawford at BFI Southbank

David Benedict Monday, 30 July 2018

What’s that? Joan Crawford had no sense of humour? Well, take a look at It's A Great Feeling. It’s a pretty bizarre (and pretty bad) 1949 musical with Jack Carson and Dennis Morgan playing themselves running round the Warner Brothers lot attempting to make a picture.

Michel Hazanavicius: 'Losing himself is how he found himself'

Demetrios Matheou Friday, 11 May 2018

French director Michel Hazanavicius made a name for himself with his OSS 117 spy spoofs, Nest of Spies (2006) and Lost in Rio (2009), set in the Fifties and Sixties respectively and starring Jean Dujardin as a somewhat idiotic and prejudiced secret agent.

Oscars 2018: The shape of a snoozefest

Matt Wolf Monday, 05 March 2018

Is #MeSnooze a hashtag? It could well be for those who sat through the 90th annual Academy Awards, an Oscar night so reined in by the current climate in Hollywood that it was as if all the fun and frolics had been leached out of a ceremony always at its best when it lets in a teensy bit of the...

Clio Barnard: 'We need to talk about sexual abuse' - interview

Owen Richards Tuesday, 20 February 2018

Clio Barnard has quietly been building a reputation as one of Britain’s most human storytellers.

theartsdesk at the Viennale: shunning the 'illusion machine'

Demetrios Matheou Tuesday, 07 November 2017

The Viennale is one of the best film festivals in the world and an indispensable part of Vienna’s cultural life. Yet this year’s edition was launched amid trying times.

Young Reviewer of the Year Award: the four finalists are...

theartsdesk Friday, 29 September 2017

In July we launched a competition in association with The Hospital Club to unearth talented young critics. We were clear about what we were looking for: “We want to read reviews that make us think – provocative, entertaining writing that gets under the skin of the art it addresses, that dares to ask uncomfortable questions and offer new answers.